Immigration Wave is Rising

November 26, 2003

Net immigration to the United States rose dramatically by 1.4 million in each of the past two years, about half a million of whom were listed as illegal aliens, according to a report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).

If the numbers remain unchanged, this decade will mark the most massive wave of immigration in American history. By 2010, they forecast, 14 percent of the country's total projected population -- 45 million people -- will be foreign-born.

The report, based on a study by FAIR of the U.S. Census Bureau's annual population survey for 2000 through 2002, issued in April, says an immigration base of 14 percent in 2010 nearly would double the figure posted in 1990.

In September, the U.S. Census Bureau said the foreign-born population in the United States had grown to more than 33 million in 2002, a jump of 5 percent in one year, and accounted for nearly half the country's population growth last year.

The foreign-born population accounted for 44 percent of the total U.S. population growth during the year.

Mass immigration is increasing the burdens on education, public health care and requiring enormous investment in new infrastructure, when local governments are hard-pressed to keep existing infrastructure funded," says FAIR executive director Dan Stein said.